The idea behind Odyssey is that Nintendo's finally going back to the Super Mario 64 style of 3D platforming with their flagship franchise, just with a few updates. Like in Super Mario 64, there are collectables scattered around several different worlds, or "Kingdoms" that Mario can explore. The thing this time around, though, is that there are no "episodes" to choose from, and instead you're allowed to explore the world at will as much as you want (not unlike a certain other collect-a-thon platformer...). Also, it's moons now instead of stars.

Super Mario Odyssey goes beyond just that, though; Mario makes a new friend in the form of a ghost-hat creature called Cappy, who takes the form of Mario's hat and can be tossed around to attack, interact with objects, or even jump on for an extra boost! But the REAL kicker is Cappy's ability to allow Mario to "capture" enemies and objects in order to solve puzzles and explore the world in a whole new way! With Cappy's abilities and Mario's tried-and-true platforming skills, they set out to stop Bowser from marrying Princess Peach (who is wearing Cappy's sister, Tiara, as part of her wedding outfit)!

To say any more would go into spoiler territory, not to mention would do any newcomers a disservice, given that a lot of the charm of the game is seeing what kind of worlds there are, and what kind of crazy secrets lie within them. I can safely say, as someone who's been a fan of Mario for almost 25 years it feels like, there are a LOT of surprises both old AND new! I would easily recommend it for not only fans of Mario and fans of 3D platformers in general, but also those that miss the collect-a-thon type of games of the 90's... which, yeah, kind of ironic that I say that on these forums.